Carbon tax will make us poorer

The carbon tax will put our exporters at a disadvantage and make imports more attractive to Irish consumers, according to the Irish Dairy Industries Association. This is so obvious that I can't believe how little conversation the carbon tax has generated.

Now the current low level carbon tax will have an effect, but not a drastic one. However, it also will have essentially zero impact on our emissions so if the logic is to reduce emissions then we must face up to the fact that our carbon tax will have to be a lot more punishing, which will mean that our small, underpopulated island will be able to export fewer and fewer physical goods.

They haven't even started working on airplane costs. Once those are brought into the 'carbon tax' net we'll be in deep trouble. Even manufacturing drugs here might be economically untenable. At the very least, each addition to the carbon tax will require an equal reduction in some other cost, probably wages.

We either find a lot more U2s and Iona Softwares or we're going to get a lot poorer.

De Burca not on board EU gravy train yet

Deirdre de Burca says she hasn't been offered any EU job. I guess the Wicklow Times was a bit 'premature'. The WT said that de Burca "did not deny claims she would not be continuing her role as Senator in the New Year." She then told them, "I am under pressure for time. Goodbye."

Maybe she could have spent a minute longer clarifying her non-denial?

Slowing down the trains

Is Iarnrod Eireann advising New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority?

Two months ago the NY Times reported that those who run New York's subway system had hired the London Underground authority as consultants. Today I'm wondering if they haven't also hired the folks in charge of the DART. Why?

Try this. A new phenomenon is delaying subway trains - fallen leaves. Now where have I heard that one before?

Praise for Going Rogue where I least expected it

Words I never thought I'd read anywhere at NYTimes.com: Sarah Palin's autobiography is "compelling and very well done." Stanley Fish also wrote that Palin's voice is "undeniably authentic," and that "perseverance, the ability to absorb defeat without falling into defeatism, is the key to Palin’s character."

Sharing the pain must include pension cut

If the budget includes no cut to the state pension then all talk of Lenihan being "brave" is proven to be nonsense. All the talk of everyone having to "share the pain" will be shown to be nothing but waffle.

There is no argument for not cutting the state pension if those in their 20s & 30s, who are probably enduring the pain of the current downturn more than any other group, are going to suffer cuts to child benefit, carbon taxes to make their drive to work more expensive and long term negative equity. That's not even counting all those young people who've lost their jobs.

De Burca abandoning Wicklow

Maybe I missed it in the national press, but the Wicklow Times says our former local councillor Deirdre de Burca is abandoning politics here for a nice, safe, well-paid (€120K pa) job in Brussels. The WT says de Burca will be working "alongside" Maire Geoghean Quinn.

And still there are people who think the Greens were mad to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil.

From the Phoenix Park to the Governor's Mansion

Oh, in case you were wondering, my phone never rang. I never received the call. You know, the call. From Ambassador Rooney. Inviting me over for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Seems he picked up one very bad habit from his predecessor.

While I'm talking about ambassadors here, let me say 'Good luck' to that aforementioned predecessor, Tom Foley, who announced yesterday that he's running for Governor of Connecticut. I'm sure he won't mind me dropping in when he's ensconced in the governor's mansion in Hartford.

New model

I'm working on a new model for this blog, which explains the silence. It will be less essay-like and more twitter-like. Good thing, bad thing - I don't know.

There can be no replay

Any sports fan can understand the frustration and the anger that the referee's decision (or non-decision) caused the other day. I was annoyed and frustrated too. I watch all sporting events with a great intensity and the other night was no exception. Many times in my sports-watching life I've felt that sickness and anger that comes when you watch your team throw it away or when the referee takes it away.

I can fully understand how every Irish fan was feeling on Wednesday night. I felt a lot of it myself. I couldn't get enough of the post-match coverage yesterday. You want to feed that anger.

Still, by the end of the day I was feeling a bit sheepish because I thought too many people were heading off the deep end. Not that they were too angry - I don't think you can be too angry after what happened - but they were seeking justice via a replay of the game. That simply cannot happen.

There is injustice in sports just as there is in life and everyone who was rooting for Ireland on Wednesday simply has to accept that the Irish team lost. It's over. That they lost due to an injustice is now part of the memory, part of the pain of being a fan.

Calls from the FAI and, worse, the government, for a replay are wrong and pretty embarrassing actually.

Besides, this is probably the best possible result. If there is a replay two things are possible, neither as attractive as what we have now: (1) the team might be seriously humbled by the French and/or lose in a less noble fashion and (2) they might win, which would undoubtedly lead to thousands of people spending money they don't have to go to S. Africa.

By the way, the most impressive moment of the whole game was the way the Irish team tried to rally the Irish fans just before the start of the second half of extra time. They knew the chances of scoring in those last 15 minutes were pretty slim and they must have been dead on their feet, but rather than getting down and feeling sorry for themselves - they saved that for later - they got up for one last desperate assault on the French goal.

Some of the 'pictures' here (click on the cartoon) are pretty good.

The President's cringe-making absence and video

The other day I posted on Twitter that I was "embarrassed by President Obama" while I watched the celebrations from Berlin.

During the period 2001-2009 I heard lot of Americans living here say that they were "embarrassed" by the President. They were embarrassed by his religion, by his accent and manner, by his administration's policies. To be embarrassed by the man's religion, accent or manner is simply snobbishness or insecurity, which afflicts many Americans in Europe. They worried that their 'sophisticated' European friends, colleagues and neighbors would think less of them if they failed to denounce President Bush (even though many European leaders were guilty of the sort of corruption the scale of which is unimaginable in America.)

As for President Bush's policies, well I don't expect any American to support every policy pursued by an administration. As in any democracy, you disagree and you say so. You can even get angry. You want to be embarrassed by policies that's your choice, but policy is not something that embarrasses me although it can enrage me.

No, as far as I'm concerned nothing President Bush did was as stupidly embarrassing as what President Obama did this week. His failure to turn up in Berlin was a calculated snub of an ally - Germany - and really all of eastern Europe. The President's behavior was on a par with Donald Rumsfeld's ridiculous characterization of France and Germany as "old Europe" back in 2003.

But it was more than a snub to an ally. It was also a snub to America's own past and the efforts of the country over 45 years to confront the threat from the Soviet Union. That's what made his decision so embarrassing. His failure to show wasn't just saying to Germany, "We don't really care that much about your reunited country" or to eastern Europe, "Your struggles weren't all that important," although those were two messages from his absence. No, it was also saying, "I don't care much for that piece of American history" (our stand against Communism).

A snub for every President who stood fast against the Soviets from Truman through to Bush. A snub of the airmen who died bringing supplies to West Berlin in 1948-49 and all the sacrifices the people of America made to protect western Europe.

It was cringe-making watching President Sarkozy take the podium as the lead speaker knowing that the President of the United States should have been there. If in 1989 you'd asked anyone in E. Europe what country more than any other was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet system they'd have said the United States. If you had asked any Berliner in 1989 what foreign leader should speak first at the 20th anniversary celebrations they'd have said the President of the United States.

The President should have been there to represent the country and honor the efforts made during the Cold War. And any European or American would have realized how ridiculous it was that the President of the United States wasn't there. Instead we had the Secretary of State trying her best to sound enthusiastic when she introduced the cringe-making video. It was like a scene out of some science fiction movie where the leader is only ever seen on a video screen.

It was bad enough that the President didn't show, but the video - Uggh. Embarrassing.

Irish Times jumps at the chance to wave its finger at America

President Obama has cautioned "against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts" with regards to the killings at Fort Hood. That didn't stop the Irish Times jumping to its own conclusions, however.

The Irish Times has concluded that the killings are - again - the result of America's lax gun laws. That may be true, but only if the investigation concludes that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was simply deranged and not carrying out a planned terrorist attack. If it's the latter, then the gun laws are irrelevant as mass terrorist killings have been carried out in all western jurisdictions, including those that have very tight gun laws.

Let's pay more taxes to punish the rich!

This morning's Irish Times reports that taxpayers forked out €100m to "support" private fee-paying schools. Sounds like a scandal in these economically straitened times. Yet ...

The implication of the Times' report is that this is money being provided to the rich. Well, to an extent maybe it is, but there are aspects of this funding that the Times overlooks that should be included in any discussion on whether this money should be withdrawn.

First of all, there are many people who choose to send their children to such schools despite not being rich. These people forgo some of life's luxuries for the sake of their children's education that other people in their income bracket can afford because they send their children to free schools.

Next, let's imagine a scenario where all the state money is withdrawn from the fee-paying schools. What then? Obviously the fees at these schools will have to go up - way up. Teachers - all ASTI members - will have to be let go; some of the state-mandated nonsense would be jettisoned (think CSPE, etc); and class sizes would have to be increased.

Perhaps, however, the most telling impact would be an instant increase in demand for places in the free secondary schools because without question many of the parents would need to take their children out of the fee-paying schools. That would immediately lead to problems. Places in the free schools would be at a premium because they wouldn't be able to cope with demand.

As parents withdraw their children from the fee-paying schools, some of those schools would be forced to close, creating more pressure on the free schools. Or the fee-paying schools would abandon their fees and join the free sector.

That last scenario is probably more likely for many of the fee-paying schools and possibly the most costly option for the state. The capitation grant available to a fee-paying school is less than half that for a free school (€212 per pupil vs €557), which would mean that the school would get an €345 per pupil from the state. In addition, the pupil-teacher ratio in each of the now free schools would mean that the state would have to foot the bill for a new teacher for every 400 students.

What benefit, exactly, does the state derive from the move to punish fee-paying schools? Well, we get the joy of seeing some high-fallutin' people punished. I mean, after all, some of those kids are probably bankers' children. They deserve it as do their children. Who cares if the decision costs us taxpayers millions?

Child benefit - odd figures or evidence of fraud?

The Sunday Telegraph reports today that people are claiming child benefit in the UK for 50,000 children who live outside the UK. This is an issue that's been getting more airtime and column inches here lately, what with all the talk of cuts to child benefit, etc. Something in the order of 10,000 children are resident in another EU state, but being claimed for from here.

There are two issues here: (1) should people whose children reside in another state claim child benefit here simply because they work here and (2) are some of these people claiming child benefit for children who live elsewhere committing fraud.

I listened to a discussion on the radio earlier this week where one speaker - can't remember who what was now, but from the Labour Party - indicated that they thought fraud was an issue. The other speaker on the program said there was no evidence of any fraud in the benefit system.

Most of the discussion was about those children who are living in E. Europe, but the Sunday Telegraph's report has some interesting numbers for the discussion here. The Telegraph says that of those 50,000 UK claimants, 1,800 live in Ireland (presumably they mean the Republic).

What interests me is that the rates in the UK are a lot lower than the rates available here, so why would anyone whose children live in this state claim in the UK? For example, a single child in the UK gets approximately £87 per month (€100) whereas the same child would get €166 if the claim is made here. If you claim for two children in the UK you get £144 (€170) per month. Here the rate is €332. See what I mean?

Those figures lead me to believe that there's a strong possibility that some people are claiming twice: here and in the UK. Otherwise, why would anyone with children living here claim the UK's lower benefit?

Everyone should read Frank McNally

Frank McNally is a genius. I've been meaning to say this for months now. His Irishman's Diaries in the Irish Times are often the only thing worth reading in the paper.

Today he writes about Halloween, which is big business here now. But it wasn't always so. Now that it's a big deal, County Meath is claiming to be the birthplace of the festival.

Essentially, as is the fate of all developing economies, we exported the cheap raw materials for the festival, lacking the inclination or wherewithal to process them ourselves. Then the Yanks developed the ingredients into a more sophisticated product, with slick packaging, and exported it back to us at a large mark-up.

It is control of this value-added product that Meath is now attempting to seize with its bold “Home of Halloween” strategy. At the very least, the county could secure the Irish franchise, under license. But with enough ambition and clever marketing, the people behind the festival could soon have tourists flocking to it not just from the US but all over the world.

There is a helpful precedent in the form of St Patrick’s Day. For centuries, this wasn’t so much celebrated here as endured. Then the Americans turned it into into something saleable. And in the 1990s, belatedly realising there was a market for large-scale celebrations featuring the colour green, Dublin reinvented itself as the home of Paddy’s Day. Now at last the world is buying that product from us: which is only right, after all.

I prefer to get my humiliation for free, thanks

The Olympic Council of Ireland President Pat Hickey says that any cutbacks to the government largess that his sports currently receive will mean that "[w]e’ll have a humiliating Games, and that will be a disaster for the country." A disaster for the country.

We're up to our eyeballs in debt, classrooms are bursting at the seems, health care is being rationed and the unemployment lines are now being measured in KM (much like the gaps between the Irish middle distance runners and the race leaders in recent Olympic games), but if the government decides to cut the amount it spends on supporting professional (& I don't care if they're even semi-professional) athletes. I can live with the humiliation of not seeing Irish medal winners at the '12 & '16 games.

And speaking of that 'humiliation', what exactly has been achieved by the OCI over the past decade or more? Well, Michelle Smith won a bunch of golds. No humiliation there. Right? Oh yeah, we had a gold in show jumping thanks to Cian O'Connor on Waterford Crystal, but, well, that didn't end up right when the horse tested positive for a banned substance and O'Connor was stripped of his gold. No humiliation there.

Look, the only Olympic sport that might merit the money from the government is boxing. Why? Because Olympic boxing is still strictly amateur and boxing keeps refusing to humiliate the nation the way other sports do.

The government should cut the sports funding and then redirect what's left towards real amateurs and, more importantly, school age sports, which provide a lot more benefits for society than the few who compete at the Olympic level.

That goes for the GAA, IRFU & FAI too. All that government money should go to providing facilities for as many people as possible, not for a privileged few.

Bank workers' wages must be cut

Let's cut to the chase: the banks need to cut their staffs' wages because they no longer work for the private sector. Bank staff are public sector workers in all but name and, therefore, they need to endure the same pain as every nurse, teacher, civil servant and other state worker. This must happen.

This morning's news that AIB is going to increase the wages for their workers is an out and out scandal. It's indefensible. It's indecent. It's infuriating. It's immoral.

Spandau - everything their fans hoped for

I wasn't supposed to be going in the original plans. I had never imagined going to a Spandau Ballet concert. I wasn't a fan in the 1980s and, in truth, never imagined that any man was a fan of theirs. But, last night I found myself at the Point Depot, oh sorry, the O₂, for Spandau's first concert since their acrimonious break-up 20 years ago.

Before the show started I was relieved to see that I wasn't the only husband at the show. Us males were outnumbered by a count of about 4 to 1, but still it was better than what I'd feared: 10,000 women and me. And sitting right in front of us was a middle aged man on his own!

The show started with a video intro that was a welcome trip down memory lane for the band's thousands of 30+ fans in attendance. I know it was welcome because it elicited shrieks that I'm sure most of those ladies thought they'd never know again. And the guy in front of us? Well, he was in tears, overcome with the emotion of seeing the band together again.

I'd like to be able to give you details on the set list, etc., but I can't remember now and I don't really know the names of their songs anyway. All I can say is that the band sounded great. A lot more rock-n-roll than I'd have imagined. I think the first song was To Cut A Long Story Short, but I really can't remember. The first three songs were pretty exciting. I hadn't anticipated anything like it.

Fortunately (for me at least) I knew most of the songs because they were mostly right off their greatest hits album. I know if I was a music critic I'd have to slate them for their slavish adherence to the nostalgia theme, but I was entertained for two hours, which is a lot more than I hoped for. The band plays with a lot of energy and if they tour long enough no doubt lead singer Tony Hadley will lose a couple of chins and the 25 pounds (plus!) he's added since the band's heyday.

There was very little chatter from the band. They don't seem to go for a lot of talk, no little political asides (TG), a number of jokey references to the years that have past and the troubles the band had in the 80s. They dedicated True to Stephen Gateley.

My biggest disappointment was that the guy in front us left about half way through. He'd been dancing in his seat for a good hour or so, but I think the obnoxious people sitting next to us drove him away. I'm sure today he's exhausted, what with the emotional toll of seeing Spandau together again after so long. Me, I'm just exhausted what with the toll of being out so late on a Tuesday night. It was 11:30 when we got home! I can't believe I was in my 20s only 20 years ago.

UPDATE: 3:20pm You can find the set list and a clip from the show's opening here.

What didn't the IOC like?

I mentioned George Will's column on Twitter, but I'm not sure if anyone is looking at the box on the right or if Twitter's really worth it. Will takes the Obamas apart for their speeches in Copenhagen last week. Will says that the Obamas talked mostly about themselves in their bid to entice the IOC to award the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.

Will doesn't leave it with the vanity charge either. He asks that the White House speech writers eschew the "egregious cliches" that seem to be overlooked by the "tin-eared employees in the White House speechwriting shop."

The president told the Olympic committee that: "At this defining moment," a moment "when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations" in "this ever-shrinking world," he aspires to "forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world."

Good grief. The memory of man runneth not to a moment that escaped being declared "defining" -- declared such by someone seeking to inflate himself by inflating it. Also, enough already with the "shrinking" world, which has been so described at least since Magellan set sail, and probably before that. And by the way, the "fate" of -- to pick a nation at random -- Chile is not really in any meaningful sense "inextricably linked" to that of, say, Chad.

I know a lot of people will dismiss this - the Olympics pitch - as not all that important, believing that maybe the President didn't give it his best shot. That's possible, but that only confirms that he shouldn't have gone in the first place.

Stick to the science in science books

My daughter's science textbook says the following: "Corrosion is an undesirable process ..." What sort of nonsense is this? Why is a science book taking sides on whether a natural process is desirable or not?

Corrosion just is. As far as science should be concerned it should be neither desirable nor undesirable. I'm sure a many scientists have earned a good living trying to devise new ways to prevent or overcome corrosion. Was corrosion undesirable to them?

And, what about all those scrapped cars, planes, trains? Don't we 'desire' corrosion for them? Aren't we glad that mother nature will return giant chunks of metal (small pieces too) back to the earth? I just don't understand why such nonsense should be in a school textbook.

Pres Obama burns up his climate-change credentials

I haven't seen any footage yet, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that President Obama didn't buy a ticket on a commercial airliner for his trip to Copenhagen today. I'll bet he flew Air Force One to and from Denmark.

For what? To "win" - could be one that Chicagoans will regret winning - the 2016 Olympics for Chicago? Simply amazing. And ridiculous.

Why should the President of the United States care who hosts the Olympic Games?

But what about the flights themselves?

The President has promised to lead America into some form of carbon-neutral, emissions-control future, but he has just dashed all his moral authority on that score. When he lectures Americans about taking "unnecessary trips in their car" they'll think back to today's massive emissions burn on what is clearly his "unnecessary trip". And when he lectures business on the perfectly good substitute for business travel that video conferencing represents, they'll think back to today and how the President of the United States needed to fly his personal 747 7,000 miles to make a sales pitch.

Yup. No one's gonna listen to him on this score now.